When I was a teenager I was fortunate enough to get a part-time job as a working pupil for the most esteemed show jumping coach in the country. I was excited at the prospect of all the learning I was about to receive from the brilliance of this man. I did learn a lot and I became a better jump rider for the experience. But when somebody asks me about what it was like to work for this coach or what I learned, I have one vivid memory that instantly comes to mind and overrides all others.
I remember the day he held an open training day. It was about two weeks into my new job. I remember riding one of the boss’ best jumping horses in front of about 100 spectators. I remember my excitement and nervousness before my lesson. And I remember my coach tearing strips off me in front of everybody. I remember him shouting at me why did I think I had the right to ride his horse if I was going to ride that way. I remember him screaming at me in front of 100 strangers that I rode like it was my first time on a horse. I remember my mind freezing. I remember not knowing what to do or say. I remember the humiliation. I remember not being able to look at or speak to anybody. I remember feeling I just wanted the earth to swallow me up and let me die.
Of all the great things I learned from my time with the jumping coach, that day and that experience stand out. The emotional scars were deep and long-lasting.
Can you guess how many brilliant rides, wonderful experiences, and generous praise from respected horse people it took for me to recover from that single horrible experience? Just one episode of cruelty from my coach set my confidence and self-esteem back years.
In the process of learning and memory, the strength of the emotions we associate with the experience is a large determinant of how well we learn. An early bad experience is often associated with stronger emotions than an early good experience.
And so it is with horses. A bad experience stays with a horse for life because of the strong emotions it creates. Bad experiences tend to cause stronger emotions for a horse than good experiences. For this reason, it takes many more good experiences to overcome and change a horse’s behaviour than it does bad experiences. A horse could have one bad fall at a jump to make it afraid of jumping, but hundreds of good experiences to overcome its fear.
This is even truer if the bad experience is an early experience. The first time a horse experiences something makes a huge impression on their sense of ‘okay-ness’ about an experience.
I’ve re-started some horses that had bad first-time saddling experiences. I can think of three horses that had a chronic fear of being saddled which could be traced back to the first time they were saddled and the saddle slipped under their belly. Despite being saddled scores of times without incident, the emotional scarring of the first experience stayed for most of their lives. In contrast, a few years ago at a clinic, a horse was being worked at liberty in an arena while wearing a saddle. The horse was well-educated and had a quiet mind. I forgot to tell the owner to check the girth for tightness. While trotting around the saddle slipped under the horse and it proceeded to take off running and bucking. It took a minute to catch the horse. We adjusted the saddle and proceeded to work the horse as if nothing had happened. The hundreds of previous good experiences were enough to override the single bad experience with the saddle.
I guess I am trying to make two points.
First, the emotional baggage that a bad experience leaves is not easily replaced by just one or two good experiences. Bad emotions are a lot harder to eradicate than good ones, therefore, it takes a lot more work to overcome bad experiences. It’s best to try to avoid the bad altogether than to try to fix them later.
Secondly, the depth of trouble a bad experience will leave in a horse is partly a function of how a horse feels before the bad experience. A horse that has had a ton of good experiences to put them in a quiet emotional state is far more forgiving of our mistakes and bad experiences than one that has trouble bubbling away underneath.
A first-time experience of anything should be an emotionally quiet experience. The first ride on my mare, Six.